These Japanese fonts won’t be found in textbooks or typography journals. You have to go looking for them on the streets of Japan: your local barber, an old florist, or an outdated toy shop. Finding beauty in these unsophisticated yet nostalgically charming fonts, 3 friends set out on a hunt to capture, fontify, and give something back to the community.

Obtaining permission from the store owners (many of whom have no graphic design background but were heavily involved in the creation of their unique fonts), Rintaro Shimohama, Naoki Nishimura and Shinya Wakaoka recreated the fonts and have made them available for download. The resulting project was titled Noramoji, a combination of the words nora (meaning stray) and moji (text).

All proceeds from the Noramoji project are given back to the store owners.